Mutiny
by Danielle Anderson
Summary: Roy remembers everything. Mangaverse fic for Steel & Sparks Anniversary contest. RoyEd. Please R&R.


Disclaimer: I own nothing

Warning: character death; suicide.

The September after you died

I slept 310 nights

without passion,

the music box leaking

Moonlight Sonata.

Touching the wound constantly

became a habit.

Looking for your face

in the scars

was a holy ritual.

It was a dream that told me

where to find you,

standing erect

between two cypress trees

on Ruby Hill,

your face white as stars.

Unnatural breath,

bloodless and lost

with no idea

of who I was.

My holy wish gone awry.

Corrine de Winter, "Touching the Wound"

from _The Women at the Funeral_

There are things that come back to haunt us every night like the soft treading steps of passing ghosts - past loves and regrets whisper nightmares into our ears as we toss and turn and moan and thrash against the sheets, trying to edge away from the ghastly curling fingers that breeze through the flailing curtains, reminding us of things that happened, things that shouldn't have happened, things we wish had never happened.

Roy wishes that Edward hadn't left the way he did.

In the cold of a July afternoon, Roy leans back in the soft leather of his seat, eyes idly watching glimmers of yellow struggle through the rain clouds in the dark sky. It is a losing battle, he notices, for the dark clouds have laid a thick blanket on the gray sky, drowning any hopes the sun might have had of coming out. This is the world today - sad and gloomy on the outside as well as the inside. But there are people on the streets, still going about their daily business, albeit hurrying and drawing up their coats in defiance of rainfall, should there be any.

Hawkeye stands beside him, back straight, hair tied in a neat knot, not a single stray strand (so prim, so proper, so ladylike), not like _his_, which was wild and messy, so free and so like the sun. She seems to be present there for no other purpose than to follow his gaze and notice the weather, make casual remarks like, "It looks like it's going to rain, Sir." She is trying to lighten the heavy mood in the room that has fallen like a bolt of thunder.

"Yes," says Roy, mind echoing back to a similar conversation on a similar day under similar circumstances years ago.

Central, with its cheery days and sunny disposition, does have its share of precipitation, cold and unexpected like the north wind, but always refreshing. However, for Roy, it has been raining and the sun has been buried, turning the world into darkness for the last 310 days.

"We might have to go home early today," he continues absently, only because he has to say something, and then he gives a little smile in her direction as she says something, but he isn't listening.

310 is just a number that means nothing on a grander scale in the universe, because life goes on; we are born, we grow old and we die. The world goes on, rotating on a tilted axis, seasons change, days fly by, but Roy is stuck in a limbo and he isn't sure what he can do to get out.

Because in his mind, the world stopped turning on the day _he_ died, and it keeps playing back to that day on the hill, rotting floorboards, fallen planks, crumbled bricks, all death and decay, but Hawkeye's voice unwittingly drags him back to the present, and she is saying, "The polls look promising, Colonel."

When Roy turns his head, he sees her pointing at the papers, and he notices the little graphs, the colored bars showing how his popularity has risen over the weeks since he has run for office.

He smiles sardonically. "That doesn't mean anything, Hawkeye," he dismisses it. "There isn't anyone else."

"Regardless, Sir," she says pointedly, just like her aim. "I think you'll make a wonderful Fuhrer."

He looks at her. "Do you really think so?" His voice sounds so hollow, even to his own ears that for a moment, he does not recognize it.

She pauses, maybe even flinches at the tired, haunted look in his eyes before she answers in a small, startled voice, "Of course."

He nods. Once it was his greatest dream to become Fuhrer, to make this country a better place so that they would have fight no more unjust wars. And now that everything is within an arm's reach - people love him, they want him as their leader - it all seems so meaningless without Ed.

As if reading his mind, Hawkeye smiles kindly. "I'm sure Edward would have been very proud of you today."

"I don't think he would've cared," answers Roy, looking out the window again, wishing she would leave him alone. That's all he wants these days - to be left alone, to seek comfort in memories where Ed is still alive.

_The first night it happened, it was warm, unusually warm, and Ed was grumbling as Roy tore off those interfering black clothes (who in their right mind could wear black in such abominable weather?) and then they kissed, hot and frantic, hands clawing, nails drawing blood in the wake of their passion, Ed throwing back his head and laughing, the most beautiful thing Roy had heard in days._

_And after the act, the satisfying release, Ed lay in his arms, panting, and said with a wolfish grin, "It'd be great if it got hot like this more often."_

But it's been cold since then, freezing almost, dry and cracked around the edges, threatening to crumble any moment now into a thousand minute shards.

There are plenty of things he has to be grateful for, like the fact that he has survived the final battle without too many scratches and all his old subordinates are here with him, just like they were from the beginning. He is still with familiar faces in familiar surroundings. But none of this has meaning if Ed isn't here to share it with him.

Hawkeye has some manila folders with her, Roy notices now and then she hands them to him with awkward professionalism. "I need you to sign these, Sir."

He nods. He doesn't care. He stopped caring a long time ago, the desire to play truant the same as...as...nothing. There is nothing, really. Just...emptiness.

Roy is suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of dislocation. This is not his office. This woman is just a stranger. These are not his hands, right one moving fluidly on the papers, scrawling the ghost of a once magnificent signature in black ink. This is not his signature. This is not his name. He is just a passerby, watching it all from a distance, and he longs for nothing more than not just the mutiny of the body, but mutiny of the heart, mutiny of the soul.

After all, Ed made it look awfully easy, didn't he?

All it took was a harsh word, a defiant look thrown over his shoulder, and the slamming of the door that worried and infuriated Roy, who then decided not to go after him, because he was used to the younger man pulling antics like this. Let Ed do what he likes. He will not take responsibility.

"_Fine!" Ed screamed at him, amber eyes flashing, blazing like fire and for the briefest of moments, Roy was distracted, and then he was just filled with annoyance at the younger man's rashness. _

"_Edward!" he called, because he felt like he was expected to say something. "Wait! It's too dangerous. You're being unreasonable!"_

_But the door had already slammed by then, a firm resolve, rattling the paintings carefully hung on the walls, and maybe one of them crashed to the floor, glass breaking, but Roy took no notice as he shook his head, frustrated. Why was Ed always going against his orders?_

But then his conscience went against him (_how could you let him go there all on his own?) _and he went out to that hill.

_I told you not to try it, Ed, I told you it was too dangerous, but you wouldn't listen! You never wait for anyone, do you?_

He recalls stepping into a huge house, abandoned, sitting on top of a hill among cypress trees, set apart from it surroundings, almost...haunted.

_He went in, looking through the darkness and there, they found the body of a blond boy amidst the rubble._

_Roy blinked. Edward...dead?_ _No, that was impossible! He'd just gone to sleep. Because that was what he looked like - as if he'd fallen asleep._

_Forever._

_Alphonse was in the corner, crying his eyes out like a fountain, moaning over and over, "Brother...wake up! Talk to me...you can't die."_

_And Roy simply stared, horrified that despite the fiery temper, despite the great alchemical skills, despite possessing the beauty of the sun, Ed was just human after all, and therefore, subject to indignities like death._

_This wasn't the way...it was supposed to be._

For 310 nights, Roy has slept with the simple wish to never wake up again, repeated disappointment every morning he opened his eyes and wished he hadn't. His own body refuses to listen to him the way Ed did, and they will end up the same way if this goes on.

He is actually looking forward to it.

_Mutiny of the heart, mutiny of the soul._

_And I never even got to tell you how I feel._

That must one of the funny things about the sands of time. They flow through our fingers while we sit back and watch and think, _Oh, look at all that sand; we still have some time left._ But then something terrible happens, and all the sand is gone in the blink of an eye, and we are left to wonder, _Why didn't I make use of all that time?_

Roy had the chance. He didn't say it. Why? Pride? What good is that now that he feels the words bubble inside him like poison, longing to spit them out, only to be met with nothingness. And it _hurts._

Does it hurt when a mother can't give milk to her baby? Does it hurt when a writer is full of words but has no means to express them? It must be a terrible pain when one has something to give, but cannot.

_If only I could've told you, Ed._

"You're thinking about him again, aren't you, Sir?" says Hawkeye with a kind, unobtrusive smile, and for a moment, she looks sad and beautiful as Roy's gaze meets hers.

He smirks. The gesture is not quite the same because it doesn't reach his eyes, which are still clouded with sorrow. "Hmm," he doesn't even bother denying it (why deny it when everyone knows what he's been dealing with for 310 days?). "Am I that easy to read, Lieutenant?"

_Edward...Edward, I love you._

Hawkeye flushes. "Well," she chooses her words carefully, "you have to move on - Edward would've wanted you to."

He looks away, resting his chin on his fist, appearing thoughtful. "Move on, huh?" he echoes absently. Move on from what? It sounds so trite, so trivial, as if Ed is someone he can just forget and pretend that they'd never met, that they'd never shared those nights together, that he'd never loved him...

_Did you feel the same way about me?_

"It's easier said than done," he settles at last with a little sigh. Once he would have cared if he appeared weak and destroyed in front of his subordinates but now..._it means nothing._

"I understand, Sir," Hawkeye nods, brown eyes filled with sympathy.

He looks at her again. _Do you really?_ And again, she seems to alien all of a sudden, as if she doesn't belong there, as if she hasn't been with him right from the start and vowed to be with him till the very end.

No, it's not the beginning or the end that he has a problem with - it's the middle. It's like a roller coaster ride with a bumpy start and a bumpy stop, but a-rush-of-adrenaline middle, because that's when Ed came, with his lopsided grin and golden hair and devil-may-care attitude that Roy misses the same way he would miss his heart.

Though his heart has been gone ever since the September that Ed died.

In his mind's eye, he goes back to that calm September, to the house on the hill, the day that sealed his fate.

_And there was a boy, a real boy, made of flesh and blood, and skin glistening with tears, curled up like a foetus, face contorted and saying over and over _Brother, Brother, _a simple but fruitless litany._

_Oh dear God, it was Alphonse, human Alphonse, not Alphonse in a walking tin can, but Alphonse in the body he'd been born with._

_His flesh was cold and pale as Roy touched him. Not the warm, fiery Ed that he knew. No, this couldn't be Ed. This was just a poor, wretched imposter pretending to be Ed, throwing on a white sheet for skin, the pallor of his hair dull. His lips were blue, dry, cracked like a slave's soles, and his body was stone cold. _Edward, this can't be you.

It really is you.

_And Alphonse was now huddled up in the corner, shivering, weeping, _Brother, Brother, Brother.

_But his brother refused to open his eyes._

Alphonse has moved on. Miss Rockbell has moved on. Of course they have. Because what else can they do? Roy recalls them all at the funeral, crying in each other's arms while he stood near the open grave, stone-faced, still unwilling to accept the cold, harsh truth. He remembers looking at Alphonse and Miss Rockbell, and thinking, _So they were the ones you gave your life for, the ones you left behind. _And then particularlyat Miss Rockbell_, So this is the woman you loved._

He watched while the others wept - even Prince Ling (and he and Ed didn't even get along!) and Ran Fan, who hardly knew Ed - and _he_ could not bring himself to tears because he kept telling himself that he had to be strong for everyone else who was falling apart. So he stood there like a rock, almost as if to say that that he was strong enough for them to lean on, when his own heart felt like it had been ripped out of his chest by an unseen, demonic force.

He didn't want to cry. He wanted to _bawl_.

"I think you should go home, Sir," this time, Hawkeye looks very concerned, as if she can peek in through the window of his thoughts. "You don't look very well."

She helps him into his coat and he gives her a small smile. "I'm all right," he says. Just because he is expected to.

"Drive safe, Colonel," she advises with a nod. "And don't get wet in the rain."

He doesn't think he can get wet in the rain when he has an umbrella and such a heavy coat. His skin feels rather dry on the contrary.

But he's not in the mood to go home, not on an afternoon like this, when he should be home and preparing for the upcoming elections, though it holds little importance for him now. Instead, he drives to that hill.

Interestingly, there is no traffic tonight. It feels like some higher power is clearing the path for him.

It is evening when he reaches there. The house is still looming ominously over the hill, just like it did 310 days ago. It is a familiar and strangely welcoming sight, though forbidding, and Roy feels more at home here than anywhere else because this is Ed's grave, and there is nowhere else that he'd rather be than in the house where Ed died.

He walks slowly up the barren, dusty path, boots making a little track that the wind will blow away soon. Maybe. The rain is practically non-existent, just a light drizzle, making things easier for him.

Ed is already there, among the leafless trees, bare branches stretched out in prayer to heaven. He is pale and transparent, and at the same time, radiant and beautiful, taking Roy's breath away, just like when he was alive. And then Roy wonders if one can ever consider a corpse to be beautiful.

Golden eyes grow wide when they see him. _What are you doing here?_ comes the specter's minacious demand.

Roy doesn't answer. He himself isn't too sure but he has a feeling that he will soon find out.

Tears spring to his eyes again as he creaks open the rusted door and goes inside, shoes making odd noises on the creaking floorboards. It is like disturbing the dead.

Cool fingers touch his, and he comes to a sudden halt, closing his eyes, breath catching. No, Edward is gone, and these are just memories of him. Suddenly they are no longer comforting.

Roy once heard of an ancient tradition in the east where widows would be burnt in a funeral pyre next to their deceased husbands, because after their death, they no longer seemed to have a reason to live.

He didn't understand it then. He understands it now.

Hot tears fall from his eyes as he looks at the place - just there, right in the middle - where Ed died. He sinks down to his knees slowly, heavy coat rustling in the silence. It is so quiet he can hear his own heart, which has started to beat again just now, and the tiny splashes of the translucent teardrops that fall to the floor, creating a wet, polka-dotted pattern. With a trembling finger, he reaches out and slowly, absently draws a shape on the floor, of Ed was lying when he was found.

And here is Ed again, standing in the corner, looking at him with suspicious eyes as Roy cries helplessly like a child. Slowly, he lies on the floor, body forming the same shape as Ed's, and he presses his hand to his mouth, a pathetic attempt to quell the sobs that rake through his being as tears flow freely.

_Tears, tears, idle tears, I know not why I weep._

He has cried enough for 310 nights but crying never does anyone any good, and that's when he suddenly realizes that his life has become his tomb.

It should come as an appalling realization, but to Roy, it is the most liberating thought after such a long period of depressed confusion, he finally knows how to end the pain.

The eastern widows had to be drugged but Roy is more than willing. He looks around thinking clearly with cold calculation. All the wood is dark and damp from the rain outside; he doubts that he will be able to ignite them, even with the power of alchemy, but it's worth a shot and he wants to do this quickly, effectively, beautifully.

Ed gives him a threatening, venomous look (_what the hell are you doing?)_, which he ignores as he gathers the damp planks, a child gathering wood. And then, he answers with a mutinous look of his own.

_I will not live._

_You shall not make me._

It is equivalent exchange of the darkest kind.

Gathering wood takes even more time than he imagined but he's not complaining. He has waited almost a year for this. Of course he can wait a bit longer.

In his head, he recites various alchemical formulas for the combustion of fire and the properties in the human body that could react with oxygen to turn it into some kind of bomb. And he sees with startling clarity the faces of the innocent people he burned to death in Ishbal, people who did not deserve to die, only having been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. This would be a fitting end for him, a fitting way to do penance for his sins, because he is the one who should have been taken, not Ed.

The planks are placed quite expeditiously, surrounding him like a short, jagged wall and he throws away his coat, taking out his gloves and touching his dry skin. It has been his plan from the start to do this quickly, efficiently, beautifully, just like the burning bodies in Ishbal. _Ah, yes, _he thinks morbidly. _Perfect_.

He puts on the gloves and the ghost of Ed watches him in horror.

_Mutiny of the heart, mutiny of the soul._

The ghosts speaks in a fierce whisper like the rustling of wind.

_You will not._

Roy smirks. For the last time. _Watch me._ He takes a final look around and then he closes his eyes, thinking for a moment about Alphonse, about his subordinates, Hughes, and his country.

_Forgive me...I've failed you all._

But Ed is screaming now...did he scream so much when he died?

_youwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnot -_

Roy puts on his gloves. Raises his hands. _If I cannot find you in life, let me find you in death._

And Ed's lips are still moving, forming hollow words.

-_youwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnotyouwillnot -_

He snaps his fingers, a spark in the darkness, feels the fire burn through him quickly, efficiently, beautifully, and at last finds peace.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints! - I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Browning, "Sonnet 43"

from _Sonnets from the Portuguese_


End file.
